Following his remarks in Belfast yesterday, he held a number of meetings with world leaders ahead of the G-8, including a visit with U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and a meeting with EU leaders on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

Together with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, President Obama announced that the United States and the European Union would launch negotiations on the trade agreement in July. The partnership will boost economic growth in the United States and the EU, as President Obama explained.

"[T]he U.S.-EU relationship is the largest in the world. It makes up nearly half of global GDP. We trade about $1 trillion in goods and services each year. We invest nearly $4 trillion in each other’s economies. And all that supports around 13 million jobs on both sides of the Atlantic.

"And this potentially groundbreaking partnership would deepen those ties. It would increase exports, decrease barriers to trade and investment. As part of broader growth strategies in both our economies, it would support hundreds of thousands of jobs on both sides of the ocean."

To mark the official start of the G-8 yesterday afternoon, President Obama participated in an arrival ceremony with other G-8 leaders, and attended the first plenary session. During their meeting, leaders discussed the global economy, and President Obama announced increased humanitarian assistance for Syria.

Comments

Comments

Eric J.

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United States

June 18, 2013

There's an old saying that when one person says you arn't correct, you can debate about it, when two people do, you can call that a forum and think on it some. When you find yourself the lone dissenter of self styled "political correctness" at the G-8, you might well check your facts in at the door because you opinion is opposed by the majority of nations....Mr. Putin, I'm sure there were excesses of behavior by individuals in your great patriotic war that only occured because Hitler invaded....It is similar when a dictator like Assad wages open warfare on his people demonstrating peacefully in the street because a child was tortured and his body dumped on the steps of his parent's home.

I can't put the comparitive analysis in any plainer English than this , hope it translates well....

It was all on video...

Hurray! for the Irish!, it takes guts to keep the peace. Stark contrast from Syria...

Instead of fearing change, or doing what is right by someone other than themselves for a change, Russia should have the guts to help manage "regime replacement therapy" in Syria. And it'll need a decade or more of therapy...and bookoo bucks.